Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the filed of e-meeting management and more particularly to social network integration with an e-meeting.
Description of the Related Art
An electronic meeting, hereinafter “e-meeting”, in its broadest sense, is a collaboration between individuals that occurs electronically over a computer communications network. In a typical e-meeting, different individuals exchange messages through a computer interface to a common location. The most rudimentary form of an e-meeting is a discussion forum in which postings in a thread pertaining to a particular topic are provided serially in an asynchronous conversation. More advanced forms of an e-meeting provide for real-time exchanges of messages such as is the case in a chat room. E-meeting platforms combine multiple different collaborative technologies to emulate a “real”, “live”, “in-person” conference. Those technologies include audio and video conferencing over the Internet, instant messaging and chat room, polling, white boarding, and application sharing. Of note, the leading edge of e-meetings has found common ground with the virtual world platform in which participants to an e-meeting can be represented visually to other participants by way of an avatar and the venue for the e-meeting can be a simulated virtual environment.
E-meetings can range from just a few participants to hundreds if not thousands of participants. In the former circumstance, it is expected that all invited participants attend. In the latter circumstance, it is expected that a large number of invited participants will not attend. In either circumstance, but especially for the larger e-meetings, to accommodate those invited participants unable to attend an e-meeting, the entirety of the e-meeting can be “recorded” for later playback. Akin to a chat transcript, a recorded e-meeting is nothing more than the persistence of the different frames of the e-meeting broadcast to the participants in real time during the conduct of the e-meeting. Those frames include not just chat transcripts from ongoing chats during the e-meeting, but also images of screen sharing, white boarding and the like. Optionally, both audio and video data can be recorded for playback along with the frames.
During the course of an e-meeting, just as in the case of a traditional live meeting, participants can become introduced to one another. Further, during the course of an e-meeting, participants can share knowledge of known associates of potential interest who are not present at the e-meeting in a process known as networking. Social networking computing systems have refined the art of networking by suggesting introductions of new contacts based upon existing relationships, or known interests in a user profile. In an e-meeting, however, the process of social networking remains a manual exercise requiring the participants to recall a mentioned person for subsequent addition to a social network as part of a follow-up action.